The News Report

This recording of the last half hour begins with the Ghost of Christmas Future. The camera is shaky, but not bad for hand-held from the back of the audience, and the sound is OK. As for the readings, they’re brilliant! Give it a couple of minutes and you’ll forget the technical flaws.

This was the published announcement:

“Occupy London presents a reading of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol — 6pm Friday 30 December at the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral

As Dickens’ bicentennial approaches, it seems only fitting for Occupy London to stage a public reading of A Christmas Carol at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Dickens was compelled to write A Christmas Carol out of a strong desire to comment on the enormous gap between the rich and poor in Victorian Britain. It is a similar strength of conviction that has motivated the growth of the Occupy movement to work to transform the growing social, economic and political injustices of our time.

As Giles Fraser, former canon of St Paul’s Cathedral said: “Christmas is the most political of the Church’s festivals … all politics is about people, and without a fundamental sympathy for the plight of other human beings, and in particular for the dispossessed, no political movement for social change is ever going to capture the heart.

“For Dickens, Christmas was the emotional centre of the big society. Peace on earth and goodwill to all.”

In the preface to his book, Dickens conveys his intentions: “I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly …”

Occupy London invites all to join in the playfulness and seriousness of the Christmas spirit, and to ‘haunt pleasantly’ in a way that calls attention to the reality that our status quo is unsustainable and unjust.

James Sevitt, supporter of Occupy London said: “We are here, like Dickens, to creatively disrupt, and to make Christmas mean something beyond a consumerist spending frenzy. This Christmas, and in the year ahead, we invite you to combine irreverent fun with spiritual contemplation and a continuation of the fight against social and economic injustice and the creation of real, direct democracy. Please join us.”

One of the glaring examples of corporate greed may be just down the street in the city we live in. WalMart makes massive profits, yet their employees suffer from some of the poorest working conditions and pay in any American workplace.

This is not only smart, but hilarious as well. #OWS in New York, came accross a bonanza when it was realized that Law and Order:SVU was filming an episode dealing with the Occupy Movement. What comes next is the stuff of legends and folklore…..

(Mother Jones) It’s straight out of a Don DeLillo novel: A few hours after television producers set up a replica of Occupy Wall Street for the filming of a new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the real Occupy Wall Street announced plans to occupy the fake one. At 11:30 p.m. the call to occupy the set went out on Twitter with the hash tag #Mockupy. Located at nearby Foley Square, the fake camp includes a replica of the OWS kitchen and library as well as numerous tarps, tents, and signs. “They’ve delivered us this perfectly wrapped Christmas present with a bow on top: They rebuilt our camp,” OWS organizer Jake DeGroot told me shortly before the announcement went out. “How could we not go and take it?”

As of about 1:00 a.m., the police had begun to push protesters out of the park anddismantle the set. “NYPD does not respect Law and Order,” the crowd chanted cheekily. At one point, an occupier asked an officer, “Are these real barricades, or a set piece?”

Within about an hour police had cleared out the protesters, which was less time than it took clear the real Zuccotti, but probably more than they’d need on a TV show. “You guys just cleared a fake Zuccotti Park,” the tweeter @NewYorkist told a police officer, who countered that they’d done no such thing: “We didn’t clear a fake Zuccotti,” he insisted. “They’re taking the set down.”

A few minutes later, the occupiers regrouped on a nearby set of steps for an impromptu general assembly. “This is beautiful, and this points out to us a more clever way to fight the struggle,” someone said, echoed by the people’s mic.

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